Now Ray’s in school again. It seems to Sharon that he may be slipping back into something like his Tet Offensive or R.O.T.C. weirdness with talk like today’s. It’s happening more and more. She wonders if she should call her uncle. Ray and his father could be closer, but Uncle Ron was there 25 years ago, when it started before…

Sharon pulls her sweatpants off then to throw them into the washer and rediscovers Nancy’s barrette. She looks at its small picture again and starts for the wastebasket, but she deposits it instead in her jewelry box, even though it carries the fine grime of ten years under the doorframe. She has a sudden desire to see Nancy.

“You always were a witch,” Sharon addresses the idea of her stepdaughter. “Now I discover this artifact you planted here, and I’m forced to remember you, now, when I have so many other things to do. Witch.” She’s exaggerating, but the barrette is having a strong effect upon her, and she’s doing whatever she can to reduce that effect. She feels uncomfortable.

Sharon didn’t love Nancy. She met the baby girl expecting to love her, intending to, but it just didn’t happen. At the time she wondered if it could be jealousy; Pete’s only daughter would always have his love, something that Sharon as his second wife wanted assured to herself. Or maybe her coolness was some sort of maternal competition. Since Sharon loved her own child to distraction, how could she do other than (in her heart) disparage other babies as less perfect than Timmy? She has looked inside herself to the best of her ability, and she doesn’t think her problem with Nancy came from jealousy or competitiveness. The little girl just wasn’t very likeable.

Nancy was a colicky baby, a fussy toddler, and a tantrum-throwing tot. She was terrified of anything new, which made her less than fun to take places, and she was amazingly stubborn. They left her once sitting in the middle of a sidewalk, because she refused to walk any farther and demanded to be carried. They acted like they were deserting her and then hid behind the corner of a building to watch what she would do.  After 25 minutes, they gave up. Three-year-old Nancy never budged in that time.

She didn’t even cuddle correctly. She had a rounded high forehead and she liked to burrow with it into Sharon’s side. That would have been awkward but bearable if Sharon weren’t so ticklish, but as she was, the cuddle didn’t work. Every time Sharon tried to adjust her position Nancy objected, flailing with her plump hands and sometimes scratching Sharon until Sharon, ashamed to admit it, came to hate the sight of Nancy’s fat baby fingers.

And twice, Nancy shat in the bathtub. What was that about? She wasn’t sick either time, and even Dr. Spock says babies never move their bowels in the bath. It wasn’t the most unpleasant stuff Sharon ever had to clean up, but it remains in Sharon’s mind somehow emblematic of the Nancy times.

She hasn’t seen Nancy in ten years. Pete insisted on a clean break with the divorce, so Tim and Nancy were wrenched apart after being raised like part-time twins for the first seven years of their lives. For Tim that led to a lot of therapy; Sharon’s grateful that he’s better now. She has heard a little about Nancy, and it hasn’t been good. But today she found a hot pink artifact from child Nancy, and she has a powerful urge to see her or at least hear about her. She knows where Pete is. She could find Nancy. She doubts it would do any good.

Sharon pours in the laundry detergent, shuts the lid, and starts the washer. She glances across her patio as she crosses her kitchen and sees that Ray is still at his table, still in his book, still with his ideas. She may call Pete later. For now Sharon decides to call Uncle Ron.